Quotebook: Save Those Words That Matter

Words, used by us every day in speech and thought, can have incredible influence on our own lives and those of others. As British politician Pearl Strachan put it: “Handle them carefully, for words have more power than atom bombs.”

It can be famous statements such as John Kennedy’s “Ask not what your country can do for you … ” or seemingly insignificant lines delivered in a novel or TV show that move and stay with you. To keep them safe and remember them there is now an app for your iPhone and iPad named Quotebook. We’ll take a closer look at it after the break.

Editor’s Note: Also, be sure to check out our review of the iPad version over at iPad.AppStorm!

The Beauty of Words

You never know when a beautiful phrase might strike a cord with you, so Quotebook comes in handy as a tool to quickly and easily record quotes to preserve for the future, and I’m happy that the developer sent me a promo code to give the app a try.

When you fire up the app, it’s empty and eagerly awaiting your input. In the top bar you can access the settings, sort quotes by date and rating, and you’ll also find the Add button here.

Welcome to Quotebook, the place to store words that matter to you

The main window will hold your quotes with a search field atop. On the very bottom are four tabs, granting you access to Quotes, Authors, Sources and Tags. It’s basically the same idea as in iTunes: you can either look at your song titles or artists or albums — it is the same information every time, but from a different perspective.

Collecting What Matters To You

Now since at the very first start there is only a lot of nothingness, you need to add stuff. The obvious way is to hit the plus button in the upper right.

The input window presents you with an area to type your quote in and then add some additional information, specifically for the areas you have tabs at the bottom:

Create a quote with meta-information like author, source, rating and tags

Once you enter an author or source, you can select it from a list if you enter a quote from the same person or book or movie, for example. Speeds up the process and a very nice touch by the developers.

After you’re done, the quotes are displayed in the main window. If they are running long, you’ll only see the first two lines, the date they were added, and the author and source. If you have the sorting by rating enabled, you’ll see the number of starts you’ve awarded instead of the date.

Sorting date vs rating

As I mentioned earlier, you can now also toggle the tabs at the bottom to quickly find quotes. I imagine that these options will come in especially handy once you have amassed a large number of quotes and want to find a specific one quickly. You could also use the search field, of course.

Search explicitly for quotes or toggle the bottom tabs for a break-down

Before we conclude our broad look at Quotebook, let’s quickly peek into the settings. They allow you to define sort criteria and export/import data, as well as enable the auto-detection of quotes and auto-completion.

Check out the settings for enabling/disabling more options

Details That Matter

Now you know what Quotebook is and how it works, but there are some nice details worth mentioning.

First, there is a nifty way to add quotes besides using the obvious plus button: simply copy some text — any text from any app — and Quotebook will recognize it and ask you if you want to add it. So if someone tells you the magic three words in a text message, you can grab those or you can snatch a phrase from the web article you’re just browsing.

Autodetection finds text in your clipboard and offers to import it for you

When you look at a quote in the single view mode, you will notice that the author and source field have a little blue arrow pointing to the right. By tapping it, you will actually bring up the information that Wikipedia can find on the subject:

Authors and sources can be researched in Wikipedia with a single tap without leaving QuoteBook

Also, when you find something worth saving, you might want to share it. Quotebook offers you six different options ranging from email and text message to Twitter or tumblr. And last, but not least, don’t forget about iCloud integration. For everyone who owns more than one iDevice it’s an easy way of sharing quotes without having to refer to one specific device. The sync is not immediate, but it works, and that’s what matters with this app.

Share quotes whichever way you like

Verdict

Quotebook is a Universal app and I run it on both the iPhone and iPad. As I’ve said, the iCloud sync works to my satisfaction, even though it could be a tad faster now and then. While I realize that the iPhone has limited screen real estate, I wish that the presentation of the quotes could be a little bit more like on the iPad; it’s simply beautiful there, while the iPhone’s app design is more practical.

Apart from these cosmetic aspects, I fell completely for Quotebook. I constantly find stuff in the books I read or the movies I watch that I want to keep and of course I used to forget most of it over time. Now I’ve found an easy way to preserve words that matter to me and once the display of quotes is beautified, the app will be pretty much perfect.

Summary

Quotebook
Reviewed by Julia Altermann on
Jul 4.
Store quotes safely, no matter the source. And if you own multiple iDevices, Quotebook will sync all those words that matter to you via iCloud.
Rating:
8 out of
10